263. NHS Quadrangle – World’s Largest Boxing Ring.

School fights are common at NHS

Generally they

– involve juniors
– are stopped without damage
– happen on perimeters.

Quadrangle, heavily populated

Tensions escalate between

Senior boys.

It’s on!

Quadrangle becomes giant boxing ring,

Entire student body watching, stunned.

Mountains v The Dam??*

Serious battle rages,

Blood spilt, bones broken.

Finally, bell rings.

Note:

* Are the names of the combatants important? Maybe but really only to … well, two of the adversaries are in the team photo in Short Memory #154. On the same team in 1968, some years later these two duked it out on opposite teams in the quadrangle that day. If you can pick the two … I am sure the names of the other pugilists will come to you. If you can’t it’s probably not that important to know.

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185. Hidden behind the electric light pole – an upset brother … and recurring guilt.

We’re about to leave Clare’s* place

In Cabramatta

Where’s Peter?

Silence.

Well! What’s happened?

Look at the pole up the street.

Peter’s portly frame partially hidden.

Why is he upset?

W-e-l-l-l.
We had a fight and …

Yeeess?

I rubbed a peanut-butter & jam sandwich in his face.

Note:

Clare is Roger’s younger sister. She, and her husband Frank have 3 children – our cousins, Susan, Jeffrey, Jennifer.

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87. Squeezed between loyalty & responsibility.

I wore my badge with pride.

To do and serve.

To do and serve - it was clear to me who I had to serve.

An early test.

Hidden in school’s S-W corner, cricket nets.

Lunchtime game.

Tension between two players*,

A scuffle, punches thrown.

Blood spilled.

Headmaster Smith: “What happened, Max?”

“Hit by the ball, Sir.”**

My duty was to do and serve …

Question!

Who?

Notes:

* This event probably has no place in anyone else’s memory … but I cannot remember who the combatants were, I would love somoene to remind me.

** To this day I don’t know whether this was a “good lie” or a “bad lie”. Was it the right or wrong thing to do?  I was in a position of being squeezed by differing guilts, no escaping – which is why it has been captured by my sieve-like memory.

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51. A first and last Church “arena” appearance.

Challenge out, news spreads, the crowd gathers behind church.

Chanting:

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Baying for action – if not blood.

My opponent – a name forgotten.

Shaped up in classic Queensbury,

Then rolled around in not-so-classic Greco-Roman.

Home with ripped shirt, dirt smears, blood stains (his).

Badges of honour? courage? skill? … or waywardness?

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50. Penrith Primary’s hidden arena.

The rear of this church - the venue for occasional after-school sport.

The little church.

At the rear a patch of land, fenced in.

A great venue for after school activities.

Play? Games?

A natural arena, hidden away.

Perfect for serious, unsanctioned, unsupervised after-school activities.

Competitive activities.

Mmmmm … Combatative activities.

Bare hands clinched. Fists.

Rules never written, but well known and …

Always abided.

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